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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 2120

Parkman family papers

Overview

Correspondence, poems, journals, and other compositions by members of the Parkman family of Boston, Massachusetts.

Dates

  • Creation: 1793-1896

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Extent

8.5 linear feet (25 boxes)

Contains correspondence of the various members of the Parkman family, primarily of Mary Eliot Dwight Parkman. Correspondents include: Elizabeth Dwight Cabot, Edmund Dwight, Mary Harrison Eliot Dwight, Anna Cabot Lowell, Anna Cabot Lowell Dwight Mills, Catherine Eliot Norton, Henry Parkman, Mary B. Parkman, Samuel Parkman, Margarett Searle, Edward Turner Boyd Twisleton, Ellen Dwight Twisleton, and Ellen Twisleton Parkman Vaughan. Letters discuss family, social engagements, and the events of daily life. Elizabeth Dwight Cabot's letters describe London and its tourist sites, society, social customs, and fashions. Edward Twisleton letters discuss Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whom he and his wife became friendly with in London, and his one meeting with Charlotte Brontë. There are commonplace books, essays, and journals of Mary Eliot Dwight Parkman, as well as compositions by Ellen Dwight Twisleton. Additionally, there are many unidentified poems. Francis Parkman material consists of four letters to Mary Eliot Dwight Parkman.

Biographical / Historical

The Parkmans were a prominent family of Boston, Massachusetts, whose members included historian Francis Parkman and lawyer and banker Henry Parkman.

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

*45M-98. Deposit of Mary Vaughan MarvinHallowell, Maine; received: 1945 November 2; 1946April 16; and 1947 June 2; gift: 1952 February.

Processing Information

In August of 2003 this collection was rehoused and the items were renumbered. See internal file for concordance of old numbers to new numbers.

Title
Parkman family. Parkman family papers: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00486

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440